If you have outstanding receivables, it’s a good idea to try and collect on them before you legitimize your closure. There is very little incentive for your debtors to pay when they know you’ll soon be out of business.

How can you get them to pay if their bills aren’t due? Rather than risk a total loss, you may want to offer them an incentive for early payment.  You can do this by crafting a letter offering a certain percentage off of their total bill or offering other incentives for early payment.

You can do this through a letter or a friendly phone call. Just don’t disclose the fact that you’re ready to go out of business quite yet. Make sure whatever offer you choose expires before you begin to officially file the paperwork to dissolve your business.

If you have bad debts that you’re chasing, or expect to, you may want to sell these accounts to a collection agency. Professional collection agents will pay you for a percentage of the account values.

Although you will inevitably take a loss through this route, it’s better than having your debtors account’s auctioned off for pennies on the dollar, or having them voided in their entirety.

* To do: Gather all paperwork for open accounts and plan a strategy for debt collection.